IOWA
Des Moines Register
Grant Rodgers, grodgers@dmreg.com July 1, 2014
A Warren County Catholic priest has been put on administrative leave and faces removal from the priesthood after a church committee found “credible” evidence he sexually abused a minor.
Church officials with the Diocese of Greater Des Moines are keeping secret details of the reported abuse by the Rev. Howard Fitzgerald, 62, including the victim’s age, gender, and when and where the abuse is alleged to have occurred. The reported abuse happened “decades ago,” the diocese said in a prepared statement.
Fitzgerald is the fifth priest in the Des Moines Diocese to face being defrocked for sexual misconduct since 2003. That year, a diocese committee found evidence of sexual abuse by three priests: John Ryan, Albert Wilwerding and Richard Wagner.
In 2007, Phillip Hobt, a priest and former teacher at St. Albert Catholic Schools in Council Bluffs, was removed from the priesthood after an incident of sexual abuse in a Chicago suburb. Nationally, scandals involving sexual abuse by Catholic priests have rocked parishes in cities across the country, including Boston, Louisville, Ky., and Providence, R.I.
In Iowa, the scandal forced the Diocese of Davenport to file for bankruptcy in 2006. A $37 million settlement called for payments to 160 victims of abuse by priests.
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